[00:00:00.0]

 

GK: -talk like. I get to wear these.

 

TF: I love it. You look nice.

 

GK: Thanks.

 

TF: So this is your little digital recorder?

 

GK: Yea, most of them look different than this, but I like this one because I can wear this strap. It’s super portable and you can hook it up under a camera and then connect it to a camera (TF: I see) so it will feed right in if you want it to. It’s pretty sweet.

 

TF: Very nice.

 

GK: Yup, here’s the recorder.

 

TF: Very pro.

 

GK: Shot gun microphone, very pro.

 

TF: Ooh

 

GK: This is broadcast quality. (laugh) The popping cans. Pop my can. Tell me your first and last name please.

 

[0:01:00.3]

 

TF: My name is Travis Fifield.

 

GK: Where are we Travis?

 

TF: We are in Stonington, Maine in this beautiful restored airstream.

 

GK: Would you talk a little bit about your family history here in Stonington, Maine?

 

TF: Ok

 

GK: What you know of it.

 

TF: Alright. My understanding is that Avery Fifield came to Deer Isle sometime at the end of the 1700’s like the late 1790’s. He came as a carpenter’s apprentice to a gentleman named [Jesse Niles]. Avery was from Haverhill, New Hampshire. He came from a big family and there is actually still a lot of Fifields out in that part of New Hampshire. He was married to [Mary Small Lunt] I think. [Mary Small Lunt]. He bought 160 on the south side of Burnt cove. Starting from up around Burnt cove market all the way kind around Fifield point and down to Sand Beach. They had a lot of kids (laugh). I descend from their son Avery Junior. The direct line goes Avery Junior down to Joseph Fifield, down to [Tilden] Fifield, down to Morris, to Willy and then Wally and then me.

 

[0:03:28.3]

 

GK: Woah, that’s like 8 generations.

 

TF: Quite a bit. I think Avery is my 5th great-grandfather. That’s what he is.

 

GK: Wow.

 

TF: Since he had a lot of kids and he was a carpenter’s apprentice, he was obviously very good at building houses. It seemed like a lot of the construction dates for a lot of the houses, I guess I knew a lot of the house around Burnt Cove were originally Avery’s childrens’ houses and their construction dates roughly correspond to when they got married. I guess if your father is a carpenter then it’s like, ‘here’s your plot of land and build you a house.’ Avery Junior’s house, [Leigh Faye] lives in it now on the Whitman side actually of Burnt Cove. There are a couple other houses around there. Do you know the house that [Derrell Dunamn] is renting?

 

[0:04:41.3]

 

GK: Mnm

 

TF: It’s right across from Royce’s house. So that was Evan Fifield’s house. Another one of Avery’s kids. Do you know the open harbor house, right where Stella Billings lives?

 

GK: Mhm

 

[0:04:56.3]

 

TF: Those two big stone pillars in front of the driveway right across from Burnt Cove market. That was [Mary Anne Switzer Fifield’s] house. Let’s see, a little further down on our side of the road we have [Stephen Morey’s] house. The house is where Sally Mac, Sally Rush, she runs the little clam factory gifts. Her house was built by Stephen Morrey was, I always thought he was like an adopted child of Avery after talking to Leigh Faye actually at the historical society, it might have been actually that he was bound to Avery. They would take in these really impoverished kids. They would work in the family in sort of an exchange for this room and board. He ended up marrying his sort of adopted sister, [Eunice] Fifield.

 

[0:06:14.5]

 

TF: Yea, Stephen’s house is still there. There’s a lot of the original Avery house’s still around. I guess I understand that he built his first little log cabin right around where that clam factory was when we first bought that property because that’s like the best beach home for a cove. Great low tide access, perfect sloping beach, so it makes sense that he would have lived there. Avery fished. He farmed. The original settlers did a little bit of everything. Avery Junior was also a fisherman. Joseph, I understand, was a Penobscot river pilot. If the ships that were going up towards Bangor, he would row from Burnt Cove to meet the ships as they were passing up to Bangor. He knew the route so he would take the helm from Burnt cove and get them up river.

 

[0:07:33.2]

 

TF: [Tilden], Joseph’s son, was the one that started the Fifield lobster company. He lived on Vinalhaven for a little bit actually. He was born in Burnt Cove, but he lived on Vinalhaven for a while. I am not really sure what he was doing out there. My assumption is that it was like the 1890’s when he was living out there. He worked at one of the quarries. I don’t have any evidence for that. It’s just a guess. Tilden married [Stella Gray] when they were just teenagers and so they had three boys. Maurice, as it’s written it looks like it would be pronounced Maurice, but it’s pronounced ‘Morris’. It was Maurice, Allen, and Robert. He was married to Stella Gray so they moved back to Burnt Cove about 1897, 1898. That’s when they built the house that I live in now.

 

[0:09:02.0]

 

TF: Tilden’s wife was Stella, died in the flu epidemic of 1918. I think I remember seeing that her death notice was in the paper and it was September of 1918 I think it was. She died because of it. I would say pretty tragic, but it was really interesting that you could see in the news paper clipping about a month later, for some reason it was in the paper. Actually, Leigh Faye found as well that it was written in the paper that the boys had recovered from the flu. I just imagine being Tilden at the time and it’s like your wife is sick with the flu, your three boys are sick with the flu all at the same time. Your family on the verge of getting wiped out. The three boys ended up surviving. Thankfully. Maurice, eventually moved to the other side of the cove to the Whitman’s side of the cove. He ended up, for awhile, he rented Avery Junior’s old house on that side of the cove. It was there that Maurice and his wife [Vesta Robbins] had Willy, my grandfather.

 

[0:10:45.3]

 

GK: Festa or Vesta

 

TF: Vesta.

 

GK: Vesta. These names are awesome.

 

TF: Yea. V-E-S-T-A. Different (laugh)

 

GK: Very Great.

 

[0:10:58.9]

 

TF: So Maurice, just like a lot of islanders, he did a little bit of everything. He fished. He farmed. He did whatever he had to do to get by. After Willy was born they ended up moving to the corner of Whitman Road and 15A. I think the people’s last name now is Switzer, that live there. There are some really neat pictures of my grandfather when he was like 5 years old or something. He and his sister Stella were climbing on this ladder on that big rock that’s out in front of their house. Willy married his high school sweetheart and [Annie Douglas], who was from Little Deer Isle. They got married right before he left for World War II. He and Annie were high school sweethearts. Then, Willy went into the army. Then, Annie as I guess I understood it, took a train down to North Carolina, which is where he was departing from. They got married down there. Actually, I went to go find the church when I was in school in North Carolina. It was Wilmington, North Carolina. I looked up their names in the wedding registry in the town hall.

 

[0:12:34.2]

 

TF: Then, Annie came back. Willy shipped out and Annie lived with Maurice and Vesta in Burnt Cove until Willy came back. When Willy came back at the end of World War II, he went to work for his grandfather, who was Tilden. Tilden in 1940 had started the lobster [money?] business. He had started building the wharfs and stuff that we still use. Tilden died in 1947 so Willy had it since then. My dad was born around that time. Actually, it was in ‘47. My father grew up on that wharf. We have photos of him. The wharfs are still under construction and he is just busting around there amongst all the junk.

 

[0:13:41.1]

 

TF: He and Willy built a lot of the infrastructure that is down there right now like the loading portion of the wharf, lots of the free-standing pier portion of it. What Tilden had built was two main crib docks. They will sort of form the logs in a square and fill them with little rocks that a human can put in there. You can see under all of our big stones there in the new wharf, the original kind of base that’s all these dinky football-sized stones. Wally and Willy did a lot of the infrastructure work and then my dad, Wally, took over the business. It was 1985. Started with a year lease as a trial run to see how it went. At that point, the house that I live in now, so like I mentioned before Tilden’s first wife Stella died but he ended up remarrying and his second wife was named [Eva Foster]. After Tilden died, Eva still lived in the house and the business and house were separate. The business wasn’t that big then so it wasn’t that big of a deal. After Eva passed, Willy and my dad negotiated the purchase of the house from Eva’s son George Foster, who’s living in Massachusetts. No relation to us. Her kid from her first marriage.

 

[0:15:50.5]

 

TF: So they bought that house. My father, within one year he had his first lease on the business. The next year he moved into the house and then the following year the ownership sort of turned over to him. That is just about to where we are today. Now we are in transition for that same thing that Willy and Wally did. This year will be a trial run to make sure I am able to run things okay. Assuming that I can run things okay, then we will transition the business just like Willy and Wally did. Dad will still be there, still working but the main day-to-day stuff will go to me. The house and that sort of stuff. Kind of looking forward to that.

 

[0:16:55.1]

 

GK: Did you think that would be your path?

 

TF: Mmnm. No not at all. Just like you. I couldn’t wait to get off this island. I couldn’t wait.

 

GK: And then something happens.

 

TF: And then something happens, yea. I was 17. I left to be an exchange student. We had [Clara] and [Quan] I think it was at that time. It just kind of inspired me to look into those programs. I ended up going to Ecuador in 2001, delayed my high school graduation by year. Since it was my senior year and all of my friends were already off to college then I started to finish high school in Ellsworth. We had some property in Ellsworth so I could go to school over there. I graduated from high school in Ellsworth. Went to Brazil for a bit then came back left for school in North Carolina and just thought I would just never ever come back. Then, I guess it took 14 years and then.

 

[0:18:13.3]

 

GK: What happened?

 

TF: A lot of things happened. A lot of things happened. I was working for, it started out as the french version of General Electric. The company was called [Allstom] and they were in the power plant construction business. They were bought by General Electric a couple of years ago. Just terrible. Corporate jobs are just terrible. I think they are not designed for humans. (laugh) Devoid of light, devoid of life. It’s just robots. I was getting tired of my job. I ended up diagnosed with Lymphoma cancer. This was maybe almost 2 years ago now. I started chemotherapy about two weeks after I found out and it all sort of coalesced. The timing was like I really hated my job and I found out that I was probably going to make it through my chemotherapy and I just sort of told myself, if I make it through this then I am done with the job and I am going to move home and I am going to work in the business. My ultimate goal was to be able to keep going. I guess that is what really changed, the kind of life threatening illness. (laugh)

 

[0:20:01.2]

 

GK: I don’t think I knew that.

 

TF: Yea

 

GK: Wow

 

TF: I had this really aggressive form of Lymphoma. I had tumors on my thyroid and my stomach had holes in it. Really sort of terrible. Really terrible. Work had been so stressful and I just thought I had ulcers. My stomach was kind of bothering me. I was just really irritable. I just chalked it up to ulcers and so I was going to come up here for labor day. It was labor day 2016 and, like I said, I started chemotherapy. I think it was 2 weeks after that. Everything just came to a grinding halt. Grinding halt.

 

[0:21:02.7]

 

GK: Jeez

 

TF: Yea.

 

GK: You are now in remission and feeling better and hopeful about it?

 

TF: Mhm. Better than I ever did. It really got a fire under my ass to make some changes because had all that not happened I am sure I would just be rotting away in some cubicle somewhere. I try to look at it positively, see it just as motivation to do something else. It’s kind of a bad way to make some changes but it works out in the end.

 

GK: Sometimes you need that.

 

TF: Yep yep.

 

GK: Does everyone in your family know this history that you know or is that a particular interest of yours?

 

TF: Oh my family history?

 

GK: Yea

 

[0:21:59.0]

 

TF: Oh I love my family history. I don’t know. I just have this big interest in that progression. Especially since it was traceable like my last name was traceable from being such a nobody in Burnt cove and Avery being the original owner. It’s just so neat to still be living in the same place like that 5 generations of my family have lived.

 

GK: Yea. What does that feel like? What does your partner think of that?

 

TF: I think he enjoys it as well. The people on Deer Isle have this really really deep sense of place and I think where Jake is from they don’t really have that. It’s the suburbs. I take that back his grandfather’s generation seems to be like the transition point in Massachusetts in that part of Massachusetts from people having an established sense of place to just being suburban or wherever. I want a nice house, who cares where it is. As long as it’s on a cul-de-sac. Jake’s grandfather was a Korean War vet and he’s really old school, built their own house on land given by Jake’s grandmother’s family. Their generation has a really strong sense of place. It’s kind of sad to see that it faded out. I really enjoy that it is still here. I think that Jake sees that connection as well that it is kind of nice that it still exists here. A little bit like those older generations I guess.

 

[0:24:03.1]

 

GK: It seems like it would be pretty special the same, to have that much history and not just in a home in an entire cove. (TF: Mhm) You mentioned landmarks that are like all the way around. It’s cool.

 

TF: Yea, they have been here for a long time. I tried to look back, as well, Avery’s parents in New Hampshire, in that area. Haverhill, New Hampshire is just full of Fifields. I’d like to think that I could see why he left. It was a lot of his family around. He was this young guy who had this opportunity and he obviously was able to get an apprenticeship. I guess at that time the families probably paid for their child to be an apprentice. Maine, at that time, at the late 1700’s that was the frontier. It was open space. You get land if you show up and say you want to be here. You could probably get a land grant. Avery was actually a couple years late for the free land.

 

GK: There was free land, huh.

 

[0:25:31.6]

 

TF: He ended up buying his parcel. Yea, they would give 100 acres if you were here before- I think he arrived in 1800 because that was the cut-off. If you were here before 1800 then they would give you 100 acres after they surveyed the island. That makes sense since he had to buy his then he must have been here the year 1800.

 

[0:26:00.0]

 

GK: Let me pause for second get the family to bring their corgi inside.

 

TF: It’s funny I actually didn’t hear it until you mentioned it.

 

GK: I can hear all this crazy stuff. Tell me a little bit about what the family business is.

 

TF: My family business is called Fifield Lobster Company. We buy lobsters and crabs and we sell bait and fuel. That is pretty much the crux of it. We have 36 fishermen. We bought a little over a million pounds of lobsters. We are probably the smallest wharf on the island and especially private buyers are few and far between after the co-ops came around. We do a lot of volume for a little wharf.

 

[0:27:25.1]

 

GK: Yea, who do you sell to?

 

TF: We sell a lot to [Doug Hardy], Island Seafood, and my grandfather sold a lot to Doug Hardy. [Ryan Hardy], Doug Hardy’s son is poised to take over his family business. I am sure I will sell a lot of lobsters to Ryan Hardy. We also sell quite a bit Downeast as well to a guy named [David Rice], who runs [HTC Food] with his wife Holly. [Jimmy Eaton], as well, on the island. His buying station was Sunshine Seafood down on Web Cove back before [Eughie] had that place. We don’t really sell to a lot of people. Very relationship oriented. My dad really wants to know the people we are selling to.

 

[0:28:36.0]

 

GK: How is it determined who sells to you?

 

TF: It’s really an informal process. It’s really just whatever the fishermen want to do. They are completely free agents. They can jump ship and go sell somewhere else or somebody else with an established buyer, like downtown, could jump and come over to us. It’s just mostly based on service and how comfortable the fishermen feel like in the cove. Our wharf is a little more old school, we have space you can leave stuff around. They have more staging area for traps. It’s not like the fish pier where it is 24-48 hours. Yea. We are just a little more lenient. They just chose informally. The prices, we always match the co-ops price. Money-wise we are spot on so it really comes down to service.

 

[0:29:55.1]

 

GK: Can they change? Do they have a contract with people?

 

TF: Nope. No contract. Completely informal. (GK: Huh) Just a handshake.

 

GK: Cool

 

TF: My dad took over the business in the 80’s he just had 10 fishermen. We have almost 4 times as many, still the same size wharf. It’s nice though. The wharf if designed for an economy where there are much fewer lobsters and so if the catch were ever to decline, we are pretty well positioned. We can handle the same amount of lobsters we did in the 50’s over that wharf or the million pounds in 2016 and 2017. It’s good. It’s nice that it’s workable.

 

[0:30:57.0]

 

GK: There’s not the overhead like maybe some of the other buyers in town. You could potentially scale? If something happened.

 

TF: Yea, I guess we could. Right now I think we are at our maximum I think just in terms of there’s a lot of moorings in Burnt cove. It would take some really well thought out reconfiguring to fit in many more. If the lobster catch were to decline, we don’t have to sell any assets we are already designed for like 1950-60’s style catch. We’d just go back to what it was.

 

[0:31:50.0]

 

GK: With a family like yours, are you related to a lot people?

 

TF: Mmm, yea. (laugh) Yea.

 

GK: Are you aware of them all?

 

TF: I think on the island everybody will say, like the go-to phrase is like, ‘Oh we’re relatives, you are a relative of mine’ I don’t think anybody wants to look too closely (laugh) at like really how it breaks down. I think bad in the old days it probably happened a lot more sort of intermarrying of previously intermarried families that took place.

 

GK: Very politically correct way of saying describing that

 

(laughter)

 

TF: It is always a nice conversation. I came home kind of nervous. I don’t have much to talk about with people. My go-to was always family history stuff. I tried to put a little positive spin on all of us being related. You just go back a couple generations and it’s like you can talk about a common ancestor. They all love to talk about that and they all say, ‘Oh my grandmother was a Fifield’. It’s always a neat connecting point because it’s not too proximate or incentual. It’s a nice jumping off point for some general conversation.

 

[0:33:47.8]

 

GK: But, people know that they are family as well?

 

TF: Yep. Yep.

 

GK: I feel like being a transplant, which I am or my parents are. I could have a connection to this land in amore significant way, but it’s not my family. My family is all over the country. It’s a different thing. That idea that a lot of people know who their great-great relative is and how that might be related to you. I think that is a unique thing.

 

TF: I agree. I think that is pretty unique. It has its pros and its cons. You can absolutely see it genetically in some maybe not so desirable traits that have passed down through. I generally see it as a positive thing. The last few generations it hasn’t been so close. It was [real] to me because if you look back far enough I would guess that was happening all over the place.

 

GK: Yea, probably everywhere. What about your mom, where was she from?

 

[0:35:19.3]

 

TF: Yea, my mom is from and grew up on MDI in Southwest harbor. Her father was from Massachusetts. His name was Nelson Jones. He actually inspired me to do my genealogy stuff because his family was very into the lineage. Her father was from Massachusetts. He was stationed in the coast guard on MDI. Him and my grandmother who was born on MDI, they moved out to Wyoming for a little while for my father to go to agriculture school. University of Wyoming. Then they moved back to Maine for a little while. He worked on some dairy farms. They got divorced. He lives on Martha’s Vineyard now. My grandmother died a couple years ago, she worked odd jobs and waitressed and sort of that thing. My mom’s mom line I don’t really know too much about. My mom’s father, he sent me a lot of stuff some of his relatives had done, some genealogy stuff.

 

[0:36:54.6]

 

GK: Cool.

 

TF: Yea

 

GK: That’s really cool. I am going to use the restroom.

 

TF: Go for it.

 

[0:37:02.7]

 

[PAUSE]

 

GK: I wanted to ask about what it’s like being home after so long.

 

TF: I am very happy to be home. Very very happy to be home. Recovering from being sick really changed my perspective on a lot of things. In the back of my mind, I knew I kind of always wanted to come home eventually and I am glad that I finally did it. It’s nice. I was a little bit nervous actually to move home because I wanted to bring Jake with me. Sometimes with small towns you don’t really know how that is going to go. (laugh) To my complete surprise, everything is absolutely fine. I think to people’s credit around here, I think that they maybe recognize people who want to be here and they just assume that if you want to be here you should be here. I think probably 20 years ago that wasn’t true. (laugh) The guy, [Gleeson?], that Jake works with picking crabs, actually said something to that effect. He told Jake, what did he say to Jake, he said, “I am really happy when I live in a time where we can be friends” and then he went on to say 20 years ago on the island it probably just would have made life like hell on earth for us to just to do it for no particular reason. It’s nice.

 

[0:39:00.2]

 

GK: That’s really sweet.

 

TF: I know! It was a really nice thing to say, absolutely. Working on the wharf, along that same vein. Working on the wharf I was really nervous on how that was going to go. It’s not like I have anything to hide but I also don’t wear it on my sleeve either, but all the fishermen know Jake. Jake knows the fishermen. I haven’t heard one ill thing come out of their mouths, other than normal fishermen bullshit stuff. Even if they raze me for that stuff, it feels kind of nice to be included in the razing. That they are comfortable enough to give you some shit and they don’t feel like they have to dance around something.

 

GK: Like shit about?

 

TF: Just any-

 

GK: I mean because they get kind of sexual. (laugh)

 

TF: Yea, right right. Definitely.

 

GK: Right

 

[0:39:54.6]

 

TF: Definitely, they tease me as much as they tease anybody else. It’s just nice to be normal. Hopefully they see it on their side too, if you treat somebody like they are normal then they will act normal. Obviously, the situation is a little different. It’s nice. It’s a good thing. I was worried. (GK: Yea) Very worried. (laugh)

 

GK: And did you feel like surprised when you had a male partner and not a female?

 

TF: Yea, I don’t know if they were surprised they probably saw it coming. (laugh) It has been really incredible to be because there was never any transition period. It was just always like we came here and people knew. I can’t describe it any other way that it just completely normal. People just like, ‘How’s Jake?’ Instead of ‘How’s Jane? It’s just the same. It’s exactly the same conversational banter. It’s good. It’s real good. Especially, like when I started running for selectmen, it was always in the back of my mind, like who is this guy? What is doing here? Why does he want to be here? He’s going to ruin our morals (laugh). When I ran for selectmen, I was kind of using that as a barometer of how I was doing. I think it says a lot about the town and the people that live here that they know both me and Jake and they still elected me. I think that is incredibly progressive for a rinky-dink small town. (laugh)

 

[0:41:58.4]

 

GK: So you are selectman of Stonington, what does that mean? What are your responsibilities?

 

TF: Uhuh, I wish I could tell you. (laughter) When I came home, obviously everybody when you live here you complain about stuff, I figured I should put my money where my mouth is and if I am going to complain then maybe I should try to do something about it. So I ran, I don’t really know all what it entails just yet. I am learning. I am learning fast. Everybody is very forthcoming with information and advice. It’s nice to be in a position where nobody is trying to set you up for failure. Everybody is just like, ‘you wanted to do it, you are new, you have a good perspective, we’ll give you the tools, we’ll give you the advice and make sure you do fine.’

 

[0:43:07.9]

 

GK: What’s it like to be in the presence of [Kathleen Millings]?

 

TF: (laughter) She is like, she kind of hypnotizes you when she talks. I don’t even know how to describe what she does. It’s a talent in and of itself. You just sit there and you listen and you are in for this ride. You don’t know where it’s going to take you. It’s always entertaining. Her accent. I really enjoy her accent.

 

GK: I really hope I can interview her because I have never heard anything like it.

 

[0:44:06.5]

 

TF: It is something else. I am a little bit envious actually because I don’t have much of a downeast accent. She is spot on.

 

GK: Give it some time Travis, give it time.

 

TF: It’s good. It was easy from an outside perspective to criticize her. The more I learn about her job and all that she deals with I think she deserves more credit from myself.

 

GK: Yea, I am really curious to talk to her about how much she has to know. (TF: Yea) How much to you have to know in that position?

 

TF: A lot. She knows a lot.

 

GK: Yea.

 

[0:44:54.8]

 

TF: Yep. The other selectman as well on the board with me. [Evelyn Duncan?] and [Donna Brewer], [John Steed], [John Robbins], and I took [Chris Betts’s] seat. It’s a good group. They all come from diverse backgrounds and different professions. I think it’s a good mix on the board right now to get some really good perspectives and get some forward momentum with some stuff that the town has been really spinning their wheels on.

 

GK: Did everyone on the board grow up here?

 

TF: I don’t think Evelyn did. I think Evelyn is from away.

 

GK: Oh really?

 

TF: I think she is from away. I don’t know when she moved here. She has done a lot in the town though. She has tackled different affordable housing issues.

 

GK: I didn’t know actually that she moved here.

 

TF: Yep.

 

GK: I sort of thought she was a local.

 

[0:46:00.3]

 

TF: It’s tough if you weren’t born here. Essentially, if you were born here you will be from away for your entire life. I was talking with some people right after a town meeting and ‘Oh I went down to vote for you and Dickie, I wouldn’t vote for Evelyn because she is from away’. It’s like Jesus, Evelyn has been on this island for 30 years but it goes to show.

 

GK: I was at, this is an aside, my car broke down today at Burnt Cove and the person who came to jump me was [Dick Bridges] who I have been trying to interview him the whole time I have been here so it was like fate. He comes over and I put my jumper cables on my car and he’s like ‘I like to see a woman…’ you know that kind of thing, like seeing women doing that, ‘Not because you are a woman, I like to see anybody doing that.’ (laugh) I was like ‘Yea yea I get it.’ I didn’t even know who he was because I didn’t recognize him but he was like, ‘You are not from around here’ and I was ‘Oh no I am’,

 

[0:47:19.3]

 

TF: Really?

 

GK: Well, he didn’t know me so don’t think we have really run into each other. I said, ‘No I am’ said I my name, and ‘well my parents aren’t from here’ and then he was like ‘I’m Dick Bridges’ and I was like ‘Oh Oh!’

 

TF: You are like wait wait (inaudible)

 

(laughter)

 

GK: It was so funny. I was like, “Oh you are, I need to interview you” Anyway, it was fine and he agreed. Even in that scenario, born here, born in Bluehill, raised here. It is a funny thing to think about that you have a fifth great grandfather. You start to understand why that’s a thing, what the connection is. I think maybe it is good to realize that my perspective is different from your perspective. Even though, obviously, also really similar, I guess I understand a little more the older I get the more I think from away is kind of like a good qualifier. (laughter) Not as a negative but just as a qualifier. That person brings a whole other host of experiences.

 

[0:49:08.7]

 

TF: I think in any established area, where the same people have been for a long time. I think they need an influx of good new ideas. Good new people. Good new genetics. (laughter)

 

GK: How do you make that a positive thing? You could think about it like, I remember when I was a little kid in school, little like second grade, we used to make fun of Eatons for dating other Eatons. I always had this thing because I could date anyone.

 

TF: Absolutely. You don’t even have to do a family tree. ‘I can date you.’

 

(laughter)

 

GK: That’s so funny.

 

[0:49:59.0]

 

TF: Mhm mhm. I imagine it’s especially difficult with the Eatons and the Hardys, Jones, Hutchison.

 

GK: Deep. Your family has been here so long that you could be related to all of them.

 

TF: That’s probably very true. Yep. I know. Especially those big families back then too. You kind of lose track after a couple generations. You probably don’t want to look too far back.

 

GK: Is Burnt Cove, was the Williams family related in any way to the Fifields because they had-

 

TF: Yea, Tilden’s sister Edith married Whitman from the Whitmans came the Williams. I can’t remember how the name changed. Must’ve been with Bob’s father. We all have that common ancestor, Avery, Avery Junior. Avery through Tilden’s sister lived directly across the cove from Tilden and I guess the story goes that they would, telephones weren’t really a thing, and they would just holler across the cove to one another. Their morning catch up was Tilden on his shore and Eddie on her shore and them just hollering back and forth to each other.

 

[0:51:37.1]

 

GK: Didn’t [Bryan and Mick and Colin Schmae’s] grandparents live out there for a while?

 

TF: Oh. Maybe. I don’t know.

 

GK: In the cove. Big house with the stones. Maybe not, down a long driveway. [Sherrys]

 

[0:52:01.2]

 

TF: The [Lordes] lived in that for a while.

 

GK: Yep, that’s their mom’s parents.

 

TF: The [Lordes] rented that. Okay.

 

GK: They are not related.

 

TF: Somebody just bought that house recently and started to renovate it. House was old. It was built in 1827.

 

GK:Well, is there anything else you want to say on the record before I shut this off?

 

TF: I am optimistic for my life on Deer Isle. It’s good. It’s much better quality than what I was trying to find other places.

 

GK: That’s a real thing. I would love to come down-

 

[Conversation ends 0:52:50.1]

 

[00:53:06]